Grandoreiro
Grandoreiro (canonical industry naming.
Portuguese for "great thief", origin meaning of Brazilian-origin malware family.
ESET-introduced NewGrandoreiro naming for post-disruption active fork active since at least December 2023 per ESET May 28, 2024 X disclosure) is the most well-known Latin American banking trojan , Brazilian-origin organized cybercrime malware active since at least 2016 per Kaspersky tracking, operating with Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) model targeting 1,700+ banks across 45+ countries in 2024 per Kaspersky Securelist (expansion from 900 banks in 40 countries in 2023) plus 276 cryptocurrency wallets.
first Latin American-origin cluster in the entire corpus, addresses geographic-origin diversity gap given prior Latin-America-targeting clusters all originate from Russia/China/DPRK/English- speaking youth.
standalone malware platform cluster paralleling guildma_astaroth + mekotio in Latin American banking trojan operators cell.
Brazilian- origin organized cybercrime attribution via INTERPOL canonical January 2024 multi-agency disruption operation (Brazilian Federal Police + Spanish National Police + ESET + Caixa Bank + Kaspersky + Trend Micro + Group-IB + Scitum coordinated, 5 arrests + 13 search-and-seizure actions across 5 Brazilian states per INTERPOL Craig Jones Director + Brazilian authorities) with additional Spanish Civil Guard July 2021 arrest of 16 distribution-network individuals (~€300,000 stolen + €3.5M attempted transfer blocked per ESET "Dirty Dozen of Latin America" December 2021 retrospective)
financial impact $120M+ losses per CaixaBank/Bleeping Computer + €110M+ attempted fraud per INTERPOL + €3.5M confirmed fraud.
Kaspersky 2020-2022 telemetry recorded 150,000+ attacks on 40,000+ users worldwide (most affected: Brazil + Spain + Mexico + Portugal + Argentina + USA)
operational target profile expanded post-January 2024 disruption per IBM X-Force March 2024 tracking to Central + South America + Africa + Europe + Indo-Pacific (60+ countries including English-speaking targets, Mexico SAT + Argentina Revenue Service + South African Revenue Service); operational attack architecture: (1) Spanish/ Portuguese/English spearphishing emails impersonating courts + telecom + energy companies + Mexican CFDI tax invoices.
(2) inflated 100MB+ ZIP archive loader with PDF icon disguise (anti-malware bypass tradecraft); (3) sandbox + AV detection + country geolocation verification with avoidance for Russia + Czechia + Netherlands + Poland + Windows 7 US no AV.
(4) cluster-defining DGA with multiple seeds separating C2 communications from operator tasks per IBM X-Force.
(5) registry Run keys persistence (HKCU + HKLM Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run); (6) cluster-defining banking credential theft via fake banking login pop-up overlay + keylogging + mouse simulation + screen sharing + 2FA OTP capture via overlay pop-up (operator blocks victim screen, displays fake login + 2FA prompts)
(7) crypto wallet clipboard replacer monitoring + threat actor key replacement.
(8) signature Microsoft Outlook abuse via Outlook Security Manager add-in tool for security alert disable + spam emails sent from victim's Outlook account to new targets.
(9) signature mouse-pattern recording ML-bypass tradecraft (July 2024+ versions) recording victim's average mouse speed for 5 seconds to bypass machine- learning-based security systems per Kaspersky Securelist (specific Portuguese strings GRAVAR_POR_5S_ VELOCIDADE_MOUSE_CLIENTE_MEDIA + Medição iniciada, aguarde 5 segundos)
enhanced obfuscation via multi- layer AES CBC + custom decoder string decryption (departing from commonly shared algorithms); MaaS operational model with rental to other cybercriminals + money mule network funds laundering back to Brazil.
close operator relations to Mekotio per ESET January 2024 disruption investigation analysis (cluster-cell coherence with Mekotio cluster, police linked one arrested suspect to Mekotio)
Delphi programming language origin signature typical Latin American banking trojan; cluster placement: Kaspersky 2020 canonical "Tetrade" framework member alongside Guildma + Javali + Melcoz; post-disruption global expansion + NewGrandoreiro pre-disruption fork active since December 2023 per ESET indicates either separate operator team or developer team split survived January 2024 arrests; Kaspersky cooperation with INTERPOL canonical multi-vendor coordination demonstrated industry + law enforcement collaborative capability.
cluster fills the most-globally-expansive Latin American banking trojan position in LATAM banking trojan operators cell + the first Latin American-origin cluster in the corpus.
canonical illustration of MaaS-model Latin American banking trojan + INTERPOL multi-agency disruption case study cited in essentially all subsequent Latin American banking trojan + Brazilian cybercrime + MaaS operator industry analyses through 2016-2026 period.